Talesweaver – Another Old MMORPG

Talesweaver just entered into global open beta testing in early November. Odds are you haven’t heard of Talesweaver – it’s a relatively unknown 2D MMORPG that looks like a mix between Luminary: Rise of the Goonzu from Ndoors and Ragnarok Online from Gravity Interactive. The global launch of Talesweaver, in English, is yet another example of an older Korean MMORPG launching in English years later. In this case, it’s 7+ years later, as the game originally launched in South Korea back in 2003. The game later launched in Japan and China, but the game was never a huge success as the official Chinese servers shut down. I’m usually excited about new MMORPGs, but upcoming MMORPGs like Talesweaver are never that exciting – especially since they’re incredibly old. Talesweaver isn’t the first older Korean game to finally get around to launching in English. Darkeden from Joymax and Digimon Battle from WeMade Entertainment are both good examples of older games launching in North America.

TalesWeaver Screenshot

Luckily, the trend of older games launching in English is slowly starting to change. Forsaken World, which Perfect World Entertainment launched into closed beta earlier in November, 2010 just launched into open beta in China. This means that the game will launch in North America within a few months of originally launching in China. Perfect World, Jade Dynasty and Battle of the Immortals were three other games that the company launched within a year or so of the game launching in Asia. Too bad Perfect World Entertainment never got around to launching Hot Dance Party (Steps Online) in North America. The dancing game is currently available through the Malaysian publisher Cubizone, but hasn’t been announced in North America yet. Vindictus from Nexon also launched here in the States within a few months of being available in South Korea (Where it’s known as Mabinogi Heroes).

I personally don’t care too much that Talesweaver is launching in English, but I sort of wish the game launched 7 years ago back when it was still new. Today, no one is going to stop playing games like Runes of Magic, Legend of Edda or even Asda Story to play Talesweaver. Why? Because the game is 7 years old for crying out loud. Just about every MMORPG today offers more in terms of features and visuals. With other new MMORPGs on the horizon like Iris Online and Luvinia Online, I can’t imagine Talesweaver being much of a success. I mean, honestly.. Why play a 7+ year old game when you could be playing Fists of Fu, Fiesta Online or the newly free to play The Lord of the Rings Online. There are so many BETTER and NEWER games to play.

DarkEden from JoyMax – Another old MMORPG

I actually tried Talesweaver the other day too. I didn’t want to bash on it without first playing the game. Needless to say, the game was as I expected. The game tried having a story, as there were a few story driven scenes, but the game was so poorly translated, that the plot just went out the window. MMORPG Lore is hard to get right even in Western games. I can’t imagine Asian games doing a good job with them, especially since many of these games have low budget translations, except for the big budget triple-A titles.

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